DURING his 69 years, Rex Petersen has loved too much - at least according to the Immigration Department.

Mr Petersen, who has been married three times before, has been banned from bringing his 36-year-old girlfriend from the Philippines after authorities invoked an obscure two-brides-and-you're-out policy.

The ice cream van operator from Brisabane is currently in the process of divorcing his third wife, a Filipino woman he married when she was 26 after they met on holidays in the Northern Territory.

His previous marriage was to a woman from the Seychelles, which lasted just over 18 years, and his first wife was an Australian woman of Czechoslovakian heritage to whom he was married for 15 years.

But because two of his brides have already immigrated on wedding visas he has been barred from getting another.

"The immigration officer told me that because I already had two spouses from overseas, I wouldn't be able to have another wife unless one dies,'' he said yesterday. "I said, 'What sort of dictator brought that in?'

"I told Immigration I'd go overseas, throw away my passport and we'd jump on a boat together and come in as illegal immigrants. She was not impressed.

"My cases are genuine marriages and the fact the last one only lasted four and a half years is bad luck.

"I was 37 years older - that was a problem because my children were about the same age and she just didn't get on with my family.''